Tag: Russia

Russia Unlocks Allies

I always thought it was strange that in all the mainstream analyses of the NATO-Russian war in Ukraine, the possibility that Russia could match and exceed Ukraine’s foreign equipment supply line by purchasing Chinese, Iranian, Turkish, and North Korean armaments was never taken into account. Now, a new deal between Russia and North Korea makes it clear that they should have been.

The most significant rumor from the North Korean parleys is that Russia has possibly made deals to obtain over 10 million 122mm and 152mm artillery shells from North Korea. If even remotely true, it represents a significant number that represents upwards of 1-3 years’ worth of shell useage, depending on intensity. Firing 30k shells a day equals just over 10M per year.

Such a massive shell boost—if true—could give Russia enough to comfortably launch a massive offensive in the future without worrying about dipping into emergency reserve. Recall what I said many times before: one weakness is that Russia always has to maintain a large reserve stock of shells for the contingency that NATO happens to launch some sort of sneak attack, and full scale war breaks out. That means Russia could have several million shells as an emergency reserve it doctrinally cannot touch.

For what it’s worth, SBU head Budanov, by the way, said that Russia has already begun receiving the shipments.

So, not only can Russia exceed the total manufacturing capacity of the USA and Europe itself, but it can multiply its own resources by more than a factor of 2 by turning to its allies for additional support.

The important question here is why Russia feels the need to significantly expand its ammunition supply when it is a) winning the war and b) successfully increasing its own domestic manufacturing capabilities. An offensive is one possibility. But the attempt by the USA to open fronts on Russia’s borders in Armenia and Georgia should not be discounted.

DISCUSS ON SG

The True Goal of the WereWest

Simplicius answers questions about the NATO-Russian war in Ukraine:

Many people are wondering where is this all leading? Surely the West must know Ukraine stands no real chance of “winning” in any appreciable way, whether we define victory as completely destroying the Russian army or recapturing all the borders back to pre-2022 or even pre-1991 (Crimea).

I believe they do know this. Thus the ultimate goal is not to win kinetically or militarily, but rather to stretch out the conflict for as long as possible in order to create time and space for them to work the more subversive, under the surface war against the Russian public, elites, government, etc. In short, they want to increase the pressure on Russia’s political structures to maximize societal tension and eventually bring about some sort of political turmoil. A coup/maidan-style scenario would of course be ideal for them, even if it’s unlikely.

This is what economic sanctions were all about, as well. Not to mention the blocking of SWIFT, the destruction of Russian culture and repressions against their citizens all over the world—whether it’s bans from Olympics and other international competitions (chess, etc.), or restrictions like the ones just announced, where Russian cars are being banned from entering Europe, Russian people humiliated by customs inspections, etc.

All of this is meant to generate dissatisfaction and most importantly societal fatigue, such that the people will have “had enough” and begin to agitate against Putin and the elites. The Russian presidential election is coming up in March 2024. One ideal scenario for Western planners would have been for people to have gotten so fed up that they oust Putin by choosing a new candidate who promises to “bring an end to the pointless war, and restore Russia’s cherished economic relationships with the West.”

The problem is, all the sanctions failed, all the repressions and humiliations have only unified the Russian people with even more solidarity. New poll numbers just this week show Putin’s approval rating still sky high at 77% while new economic numbers show Russia again making record profits as oil prices have recently gone up, not to mention Russia began decreasing its ‘discounts’ to India and others.

So that was the true goal of the West—to make the war last long enough for them to demoralize Russian society into overthrowing or voting out Putin. Though it’s clearly failed, they likely believe that given enough time it can still succeed eventually, so they will probably keep trying.

When all Clown World has is a hammer, they have to assume the problem is a nail.

DISCUSS ON SG

A Decade of War

Germany is prepared to support Ukraine through 2032, even if that means fighting to the very last Ukrainian.

Germany is not daunted by the prospect of a protracted conflict between Russia and Ukraine, and will back Kiev for the next decade, Brigadier General Christian Freuding has said. He added that Berlin is seeking to ensure that Ukraine retakes all the territory within its 1991 borders.

Appearing at the Yalta European Strategy (YES) forum on Sunday, Freuding was asked whether Germany was prepared to support Ukraine if the hostilities with Russia ended up becoming a “long war” spanning several more years. The German military official replied by saying it was unrealistic to expect the conflict to end in the near future.

Freuding went on to claim that “we’ve got the support of our parliament… for our military support for our Ukrainian friends up to the year 2032.”

At the current rate of economic contraction and casualties, another nine years of proxy war with Russia will see Germany’s economy further devastated and virtually every Ukrainian male between the ages of 15 and 70 dead. Especially when Russia is quite clearly prepared for an extended war against NATO and the USA.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday indicated he was bracing for a long war in Ukraine, saying that Kyiv could use any ceasefire to rearm and that Washington would continue to see Russia as an enemy no matter who won the 2024 U.S. election.

Speaking for several hours at an economic forum in Russia’s Pacific port city of Vladivostok, Putin said Ukraine’s counteroffensive against Russian forces had so far failed and the Ukrainian army had sustained heavy losses of 71,000 men in the attacks. Only when Ukraine was exhausted when it came to men, equipment and ammunition would it talk peace, he said in reply to questions from a Russian television presenter acting as a moderator.

Russia controls about 18% of Ukrainian territory, including Crimea which it annexed in 2014, and a swathe of eastern and southern Ukraine which it seized after invading Ukraine on Feb. 24 last year in what it called a special military operation.

DISCUSS ON SG

This is WWIII

Even the NATO forces are openly admitting it now.

The head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council has claimed a third world war is already underway, with the Moscow-Kiev conflict pulling in countries far beyond the region. Speaking at the Kiev Security Forum on Tuesday, Aleksey Danilov argued that NATO needs Ukraine as a member, as global turbulence is set to continue. “We’re going to strengthen the alliance,” he insisted.

“If somebody thinks that World War III hasn’t started then it’s a huge mistake. It has already begun. It had been underway in a hybrid period for some time and has now entered an active phase,” he said.

Sitting on stage beside former CIA Director General David Petraeus, Danilov said that “if somebody thinks that it [the conflict in Ukraine] is about settling the scores between Kiev and Moscow then it’s a mistake. Things are much more complicated.”

He’s not wrong. I pointed this out months ago. This was never about Putin, his ego, or the revival of the Soviet Union. Don’t forget that WWII started with the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931, seven years before the Austrian Anschluss and ten years before the USA got openly involved. Even though we didn’t realize it until 2022, WWIII began in 2014 with the Maiden Coup in Ukraine, and it won’t be surprising if, ten years later, the US military gets openly involved in 2024.

The African front has already been opened. The Asian front will open soon, probably next year. The only serious question that remains to be answered is if there will be an American front as well.

UPDATE: Speaking of the African Front.

The crumbling house of French colonialism faces another blow as Chad demands the withdrawal of French troops from the country. This push gained momentum after the unfortunate killing of a local resident by French soldiers, sparking protests against the French colonial presence.

Ironically, France had contemplated pulling its colonial troops out of Niger and into Chad in response to demands for a definitive withdrawal date from the Niger military. Now, it seems they barely had time to leave Niger before facing expulsion from Chad. This follows previous expulsions of the French from the Central African Republic, Mali, and Burkina Faso, with Niger, Gabon, and Chad lining up as potential next exits.

DISCUSS ON SG

Ukraine in the Bunker

Despite the obvious and observable fact that a negotiated surrender is the best remaining option for the defeated Ukro-NATO alliance, any talk of surrender is strictly verboten.

German officials are eager for a negotiated solution and are talking about how Russia might be brought to the negotiating table, but are only doing so in private and with trusted think tank specialists, several of them said. But the officials also understand that they can’t push Ukraine in any way, because they don’t want Russia to smell weakness.

Still, there is a desire in Berlin as in Washington that the war not continue indefinitely, in part because political willingness for indefinite military and financial support for Ukraine is already beginning to wane, especially among those on the right and far right, who are gaining ground.

But for many others, the suggestion of a negotiated solution or a Plan B is too early and even immoral, said Constanze Stelzenmüller of the Brookings Institution. Mr. Putin has shown no interest in talking, but the younger generation of officials around him are, if anything, even harder-line, she said, citing a piece in Foreign Affairs by Tatiana Stanovaya.

“So anyone who wants to articulate a Plan B with these people on the other side is facing a significant burden of proof question,” she said. “Putin has said a lot of times he won’t negotiate except on his own terms, which are Ukraine’s obliteration. There is no lack of clarity there.”

Any credible Plan B would have to come from the key non-Western powers — like China, India, South Africa and Indonesia — that Russia is depending upon telling Moscow it must negotiate.

“These are the countries Putin is betting on,” she said. “It’s nothing we can say or do or offer.”

Eagerness from Paris or Berlin to negotiate too early will simply embolden Mr. Putin to manipulate that zeal, divide the West and seek concessions from Ukraine, said Ulrich Speck, a German analyst.

“Moving to diplomacy is both our strength and weakness,” he said. “We’re great at compromise and coalition, but that requires basic agreement on norms and goals. The shock of Ukraine is that this simply doesn’t exist on the other side.”

It’s always a shock to those who bluff when they deal with an opponent who is not bluffing. The Russians have made it very clear why they believe the USA to be “agreement-incapable”, which is based on the fact that the USA has reliably failed to honor its past agreements with Russia. I tend to doubt it even makes any sense for Russia to agree to a negotiated surrender, because all that will do is give NATO time to recuperate and rearm, just as it did after the Minsk agreements.

Since the neoclowns who are driving the war effort are so desperate to pivot to China, which unlike Russia is an existential threat to their influence, it’s probably in Russia’s strategic interests to refuse any negotiated surrender and hold to its objectives of freeing the nations of Europe from their subordination to US financial and military hegemony.

But Putin is fundamentally a moderate, so it wouldn’t be surprising if he would accept surrender in Ukraine in lieu of surrender in Europe, and leave the larger task to his more hardline successors.

DISCUSS ON SG

Holding the Strong Hand

European leaders shouldn’t have been surprised that Putin wasn’t concerned about Western sanctions, because it’s not like he didn’t know they were coming in response to his actions. The problem with always relying upon the same tactics is that the other side anticipates and prepares for them:

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz was surprised by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s complete lack of concern about Western sanctions shortly after the outbreak of conflict with Ukraine, Bild has reported.

In an article on Monday, the German tabloid cited a conversation between Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron, which was revealed by journalist Stephan Lamby in his new book ‘Emergency: Governing in Times of War’.

The exchange, in which the two leaders discussed their phone calls with Putin, is said to have taken place on March 4, 2022 – just over a week after Moscow sent its forces into Ukraine.

It’s “not getting any better,” Scholz reportedly told Macron during that conversation. “Something bothers me more than the talks: [Putin] doesn’t complain about the sanctions at all. I don’t know if he did that in conversation with you, but he didn’t even mention the sanctions,” he remarked.

The French leader replied that Putin hadn’t addressed the issue of Western restrictions during phone calls with him either. After listening to Scholz, Macron replied: “Thank you, that was very similar to the conversation I had with [Putin] yesterday. I think he is now quite determined to go to the end.”

Who would have thought that enforced autarky could benefit an economy? Perhaps Putin has some economists who have explained that free trade is deleterious, rather than beneficial, to most national economies in most historical situations. This should be obvious, considering that the financial vampires literally depend upon capital movements in order to parasitize the real economies and divert coporate profits into their own coffers, but 200 years of unrestrained economic propaganda has been so effective that national leaders are actually basing their geopolitical strategy on inverted and incorrect assumptions.

I do find it mildly amusing that neither Scholz nor Macron grasped the obvious consequence of Putin’s lack of interest in discussing the sanctions that were supposed to be their devastating economic weapon. While Scholz appears to have had an inkling of why the Russian President was so unconcerned, apparently it wasn’t strong enough to look seriously into the matter or to revisit his assumptions.

We know the leaders of the Western puppet governments are retarded and totally incapable of successfully anticipating events or the obvious consequences of their actions. Putin knows they’re retarded. Xi, who is the smartest of all the world leaders according to Lew Kwan Yew, obviously knows they’re retarded.

But no one ever suspected they were this retarded.

DISCUSS ON SG

Russia: Two Predictions

ANON: Peace plan. Lines on the map stay where they are. general cease fire. Ukraine stops all pursuit of war crime stuff. Ukraine joins EU, but not NATO. Reset button over a few years on sanctions, and attempt to have a non-adversarial relationship. Security guarantees on both sides. Acceptable?

VD: No chance. There is no peace plan. WWIII is already well underway. The only reason the neocons want a peace plan with Russia is so they can focus on China. But China and Russia are perfectly aware of the divide-and-conquer plan.

ANON: So peace will come when? Russia retakes the Soviet-controlled area?

VD: Peace won’t come until the USA and NATO surrender. Right now, the USA is actively pivoting to China, but having to fend off both Iran and Africa.

ANON: Nukes will fly first in Europe

VD: I don’t think so. When push comes to shove, the USA will give up Europe. The US already is actively avoiding direct conflict with Russia and dangling “hey, keep what you’ve got” in front of them. If you read the military think tanks, they’re all screaming “CHINA CHINA CHINA!”

ANON: You are assuming that all of the various EU countries will accept Russian rule.

VD: No, not at all. Russia doesn’t need or want to rule them. They want them to stop sanctioning them economically at the US demand. The US isn’t even planning to fight Russia. They’re planning to have Poland do it.

ANON: Russia has made it clear it wants the old Soviet borders and has a right to them.

VD: Russia can take all of Europe. It could have done so before. It won’t unless the Europeans are dumb enough to force them to do it. The reason the US will let Europe go is because it’s not even strong enough to beat China alone. And China is a threat in a way Russia is not.

ANON: I’m going on the record now that Russia will not and cannot take the old Soviet borders and conquer Europe. You are wrong. You are correct that the US cannot contest the South China Sea alone, but the US, Philippines, Australia, Japan, S. Korea, and Vietnam can hold off China or make it so painful to take.

VD: Here’s my prediction: China will take Taiwan without barely firing a shot. The US will not commit more than 10k additional troops to Europe. The EU and NATO collapse, and most of the current European governments are replaced with BRICS-friendly nationalist governments. The question is if any other fronts go hot. If China gets greedy, they’ll go for Australia, which will involve war with the USN. Japan, Vietnam, and S. Korea will all refuse to back the USN, Australia and the Philippines will.

ANON: We’ll see.

VD: The great unknown right now is if China and Russia mean what they say about multipolarity. Have they learned from the ultimate failures of the British and American empires or not?

DISCUSS ON SG

Prigozhin’s Plane Crashes

Sounds a bit sketchy. But on the other hand, has there ever been someone targeted by more interested parties across a broader spectrum before?

A private jet traveling from Moscow to St. Petersburg crashed on Wednesday in Russia’s Tver Region. The Russian Emergencies Ministry said all 10 people on board had died. Rosaviation has since said that Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner Private Military Company, was listed among the passengers.

“The Embraer plane was flying out of Sheremetyevo to St. Petersburg. There were three crew and seven passengers on board. They all died,” an Emergencies Ministry official told TASS.

If it’s genuine, I can’t see how this will have any effect on the wars in Ukraine or Africa. And it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if he next popped up making bombastic broadcasts in Mali or South Africa.

DISCUSS ON SG

Smoking Their Own Supply

The Neoclowns’ collective delusion concerning the global geostrategic situation is off the freaking charts. They actually believed the recent Jeddah conference, which accomplished precisely nothing and has already been completely forgotten, was going to be the combination of Versailles and Nuremberg.

Sullivan, the national security adviser, recently brought an American delegation to the second international peace summit earlier this month at Jeddah in Saudi Arabia. India and China both sent delegations to the session, perhaps drawn to Saudi Arabia for its immense oil reserves. One Indian academic observer dismissed the event as achieving little more than “good advertising for MBS’s convening power within the Global South; the kingdom’s positioning in the same; and perhaps more narrowly, aiding American efforts to build consensus by making sure China attends the meeting with . . . Jake Sullivan in the same room.”

Meanwhile, far away on the battlefield in Ukraine, Russia continued to thwart Zelensky’s ongoing counteroffensive. I asked an American intelligence official why it was Sullivan who emerged from the Biden administration’s foreign policy circle to preside over the inconsequential conference in Saudi Arabia.

“Jeddah was Sullivan’s baby,” the official said. “He planned it to be Biden’s equivalent of [President Woodrow] Wilson’s Versailles. The grand alliance of the free world meeting in a victory celebration after the humiliating defeat of the hated foe to determine the shape of nations for the next generation. Fame and Glory. Promotion and re-election. The jewel in the crown was to be Zelensky’s achievement of Putin’s unconditional surrender after the lightning spring offensive. They were even planning a Nuremberg type trial at the world court, with Jake as our representative. Just one more fuck-up, but who is counting?

It’s like they’re getting their strategic direction from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. “We can achieve anything, so long as we do it… together!” All that’s missing is a dramatic image of Girl Power. In the meantime, here’s another fuck-up to add to the growing collection of Clown World catastrophes:

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has sent letters to Denmark and Norway assuring that the Biden government would expedite approvals for all transfers of F-16s to Ukraine. In the letters Blinken said that the F-16s would transfered once Ukrainian pilots have completed the Danish and Norwegian lead training program:

I am writing to express the United States’ full support for both the transfer of F-16 fighter aircraft to Ukraine and for the training of Ukrainian pilots by qualified F-16 instructors…. It remains critical that Ukraine is able to defend itself against ongoing Russian aggression and violation of its sovereignty.

The letters from Secretary Blinken mark the first time the Biden regime has given a hard commitment to supplying the Ukrainian military with F-16s.

Keep in mind that the only way F-16s could be useful in Ukraine is if they are nuclear-armed, and even then, the chances that they would survive long enough to get in range of any strategic Russian targets is remote. This isn’t WWII and air power is now almost entirely useless. Ten more years of technological development should be enough to mark the end of manned aircraft in war due to satellite, targeting, drone swarms, and laser technology.

There is a reason Russia isn’t making much use of its air superiority, and that is because it is simply too dangerous to fly over the modern battlefield. Artillery and air defense are now the order of the day.

I suspect Blinken wrote those letters in the hopes that Russia will settle for an armistice long before the pilot training can be completed and the F-16s sent to Ukraine to be shot down… assuming they can be hidden on the ground long enough to avoid being destroyed by hypersonic missiles.

Clown World isn’t just evil, it is quite literally deranged. This is the end result of eight decades of relentless lying to everyone, including themselves. Success always plants the seeds of failure, but even a two-bit drug dealer knows better than to smoke his own supply.

DISCUSS ON SG

Reality Defeats the NATO Narrative

To the surprise of absolutely no intelligent observer, the much-vaunted Ukrainian “offensive” that didn’t even manage to reach the first Russian line of defense has proven to be a failure of catastrophic proportions. So catastrophic that even the US intelligence agencies are now publicly admitting that the Kiev regime cannot win the war no matter how much help it receives from NATO:

US intelligence agencies have made a “grim” assessment of Ukraine’s ongoing counteroffensive, believing Kiev will fail to plunge south toward the Crimean Peninsula by the end of the year, according to the Washington Post.

Officials have voiced grave doubts about the Ukrainian mission in a classified intel report, the contents of which were relayed to the Post on Thursday, with the outlet citing Moscow’s “brutal proficiency” in defending captured territory.

“The US intelligence community assesses that Ukraine’s counteroffensive will fail to reach the key southeastern city of Melitopol,” the report said, adding that Kiev would then be unable to “fulfill its principal objective of severing Russia’s land bridge to Crimea in this year’s push.”

The Post report appears to echo recent revelations by investigative reporter Seymour Hersh. In a story published earlier on Thursday, he cited an unnamed US intelligence official who bluntly stated that Ukraine “will not win the war.”

The CIA warned US Secretary of State Antony Blinken that Ukraine’s ongoing counteroffensive against Russian forces would fail, and that Kiev “will not win the war,” American journalist Seymour Hersh reported on Thursday. Blinken “has figured out that the United States – that is, our ally Ukraine – will not win the war” against Russia, Hersh wrote on his Substack blog, quoting an anonymous US intelligence official.

“The word was getting to him through the Agency [CIA] that the Ukrainian offense was not going to work,” Hersh’s source continued, without specifying when these warnings began to surface. “It was a show by [Ukrainian President Vladimir] Zelensky and there were some in the administration who believed his bulls**t.”

You may recall that I told you the Kiev regime not only would not, but could not win a war with Russia. This was entirely and absolutely obvious from the start. Every single aspect of the NATO narrative was false, from Putin’s purges to Russian ammunition shortages to the existence of a popular pro-Western, anti-Putin political opposition.

In fact, the only things that have been a surprise about the war is the extent to which a) NATO countries were willing to waste money and arms, and b) Ukrainians were willing to fight and die for a foreign regime that was perfectly happy to shed their blood. If the Ukrainians had any sense of self-preservation at all, its elite 82nd Air Assault Brigade would be rounding up the NATO puppets in Kiev and putting them on trial for treason and war crimes instead of dutifully obliterating itself on three lines of sophisticated Russian defenses.

Now the Narrative is shifting, as NATO is counting on Russia’s willingness to keep what it has won and prepare to fight another war with NATO in the next ten years. One can’t discount the possibility entirely, as there might be some advantage to Russia in letting NATO pivot to China, watching the US Navy die by attrition, then rolling up what remains of Ukraine and NATO once the Europeans understand that the US military is no longer capable of bailing them out. There is a reasonable strategic case for passing the baton to China and the People’s Liberation Army while providing military aid on the African, Arabic and South American fronts.

But given the combination of future uncertainty and Russian awareness of the pure evil that drives the neoclowns, I tend to doubt that the Russians will elect to take their foot off the military gas until all of Europe has been freed from the chains of Clown World.

DISCUSS ON SG